“I’m going to get a gob in my pasta.” Susan predicted, glancing over her shoulder; as soon as he was gone she dragged William's hand out from under the table and resumed her examination, singling out his extraneous finger.  "Does it have a name?" she asked of it.
"No."
"So go on, then..." she urged.  "About why you are."  

He emptied his glass again.

"I've heard a hundred stories, but I think the oldest is the one I believe... I will tell you some time."  Flecks of glitter had fallen from her lids and settled on her lower lashes.  Her smile and the inescapable compulsion of her stare forced his gaze toward the ceiling and he rolled his eyes.  "When I first left the mountains and went to live in my brother's house, there was a khampa girl there, and she said to me that in Kham, her people knew about us... her grandmother had been a witch and told her how we were created."  That he had lowered his voice to preserve discretion caused her to frown over her shoulder at the clatter and susurration from the surrounding tables.  "In their stories it was said... before words were written down, all the lands around the Mother Mountains were held by the Nāga... women who wore the black hood and had thrown off all other names for what they were, declaring themselves witches, and feared by everyone who knew the word.  They held the highest valleys and lived as self-made queens, treading down the dharma and the rule of princes and the common people as though they were stones to be cracked under their feet..."  Slowly, as though lowered by a dial, their neighbours' conversation fell away into a silence that obliged his confidences, adjacent strangers laying down their knives and forks and sitting in abeyance; when he spoke again, the words arranged the shapes of black-swathed women gathered in a vale of nodding poppies, felt-leaved and welkin-blue, the hard grey taste of meltwater pooling in her mouth.  

"It was said they commanded the air and flew like great black crows, that they stole the shapes of wolves and tigers and wore them in the darkness... that even the rivers drew back their water at their word, to offer passage.  Beasts of the forest took their decrees into the palaces of kings and spoke them with voices they were given for the purpose, so that the prince of Mahājanapadas might be tithed or directed by a bird or spotted deer before his people, and humbled... if any nobleman or priest said words against them, even in their dreams, the Nāga would cause the sky over their land to stare down like the white eye of a demon of the waste, until the crops were scorched and blown like ashes and their children and their animals lay down in the streets and died like fish cast out of water.  And in lamenting them, these kings and nobles earned for their dearest kin a white bolt from the sky that cleaved their bodies into smoking ruin."  

"And it was said that the pride of these witches were the sadhaka... familiars they had created, to serve as the pillars and ornaments of their art, creatures assembled from three principles... from men, so they had tongues to speak and hands to perform the tasks required... from beasts, for their strength and instinct, and shapes more pleasing to their creators than the common run of man... and from elementals, the spirits of the ice and stone, so they could prosper where no honest creature might, and would stand apart from all else, as is the wont of primal spirits.  The Nāgas' magic stood on the shoulders of these creatures, who were tempered against ice and flame, and wise in all that they were told and nothing else."

"At first it was said the Nāga raised them only in the female shape, and were happy to be answered and reflected.  But some found in the half the greater promise of the whole, and raised up the male, thinking that with this race of slaves they were inviolate, and pressed their subjects into tenfold penury, caring nothing for their fate.  It was this way for so long that none living remembered any dead who could have spoken truly of a time before the Nāga."  

"Then, a summer passed without their emissaries appearing in the courts to give the terms of tribute, and the people looked toward the sky in dread... but rain came as it had once done, like a forgiveness, and no word fell on them.  From every kingdom, parties travelled into the mountains seeking the will of the Nāga, more frightened than relieved by the silence, but when they came to the great houses of the eldest witches they lay empty, dripping gold, and only a few who might have called themselves Nāga and been believed remained, so reduced in circumstance that many would not credit their story.  These women said that once the sadhaka were both male and female they had woken from servitude and deplored their fate... that they destroyed the lore of their creation and those who held it, and had gone away to some unknown place, desiring nothing but themselves.  The Nāga fell without their familiars, and were left to scrabble in the ruins of their greatest works, and all around them limped and howled and stumbled the miscreations they had raised with their half-remembered words..."    

Stood before the witches' forsaken houses, Susan gazed up at the lintels deeply scored with dread maxims and felt the sun, fierce and unclouded, on the back of her neck, her shadow on the paving stones rendered in the blues of the night sky.  Gold charms, couched as grinning demons' faces, hung from the blackened cedar and tilted with the wind, clattering against the wood as though restive at their abandonment.  The sound was taken up and replayed, almost uncertainly, by the diners seated around them as they emerged from their hushed, unconscious observance and resumed their meals. 

"Those stories are told all over the mountains..." William admitted.  "There are a thousand versions, but that one sits in my ears like water and won't go away."  Susan picked up her neglected glass and pressed its beaded surface to her cheek, blinking concertedly to clear her head.  "I would say more, but I just don't know... it’s been a while since they kicked us through the swing doors.  Ed got his buttocks exiled, I went with him... we haven’t phoned in since."

She bit the end from her breadstick with a redoubled frown at the mention of his brother's name.

“He’s got yellow eyes.  Yellowy-orange.  I always try not to stare, but he sees me seeing them, and I see them even more.  And now you can tell me why there was blood all over his clothes.  What's wrong with him?  Was he abused as a child or something?”  Their meals arrived, Susan’s steaming with fragrant cépes, William’s plate unceremoniously stuffed with the brilliant orange blooms that he had requested, three glossy glacé figs standing alongside the mass of flowers.  She began to trowel deeply through her pasta in her intoxicated enthusiasm; he watched her shovel huge portions onto her fork, mashing them against the wall of the bowl and lifting them quickly to her mouth before they toppled from the tines, washing the meal down with liberal swigs from her tumbler.  Pausing to chew and deliberate, she watched him address his more ethereal repast; he ate each flower with the decorous modesty of a geiko, eyes wandering to hers.

“Is that good?” he inquired.  She nodded, and ate another mouthful.
“Delicious.  So that’s where all the flowers went... I thought I was going mad.  I knew you weren’t bloody macrobiotic.” she scoffed, recalling his original contention.  “Is this too minging for you?” she asked of her pasta, drawing it back from him.
“You can’t freak me out with food.  You wouldn't believe the things I’ve seen people eat.  Do you want to know?" he added without looking up.  Her fork slowed in the midst of her plate.
"About your brother?"  Susan shook her head and shrugged.  "Honestly, I wouldn’t ask, but... I think it might be easier if I knew why he's like that.  He's not the sort of person you want to get the wrong end of the stick about.” she confided.  He guarded his reply from anyone beyond their short circle of lamplight.
“A lot of it's just another story... it came to me in pieces, from other people.  My mother told me he was born under a red-tailed star... a comet, probably... the worst of all signs.  It's always amazed me how so much comes down to your birth, when you're the least you'll ever be.  Usually the priestesses would have taken him away and that would have been the last anyone saw of him, but... I think now they needed someone to make an example of.  You probably weren’t raised by crazed eugenic matriarchal fundamentalists, but I can tell you, they like uniformity.  And obedience.  A lot.  There is a saying that we have... y’li is’thle veh ah’na siith... be always what you are.”  William watched her repeat it.  “Sounds lovely, but it means you’re supposed to be what someone else has already decided.  Fucking everything was set in stone... your name, who you talked to, who you married... everything.  We weren't allowed to create, because it’s il'si'sith, against nature, but they would catch my brother drawing pictures in the dirt... we weren't supposed to go into the water because it was sacred, but no one bothered with him so he went off and swam in the lakes.  Then the priestesses would find a kala'ashase, a blackthorn tree, cut the summer branches and beat him with them, until he couldn’t stand or speak."  Memory raised the faces of the Sthali'sātva as they stood over him, demanding his brother's whereabouts.        

"If you don't want to tell me this, I..."

"No... I do.  I want you to know, so you don't take it personally.  When I was very young he'd walk with me and show me things, animals and plants... I suppose because he had no one else to talk to.  But when they started in on him he went quiet, slowly... the words got smaller and further apart, and after a while he stopped talking altogether.  One day I realised I couldn't remember the sound of his voice and it scared me, so I went looking for him.  I found him sitting on a stone on the side of a hill, after a beating... I knew it was bad from the way he was sitting, like he'd been cut up and put back the wrong way... and I asked him why he did the things that made everybody hate him.  He looked at me, and a sound came out of his mouth... not words... the sound of one animal being eaten by another, something helpless as it died.  I was so fucking scared I ran away."  His hand spanned the glass before him.  "This went on and on, until he even looked different from the rest of us.  I knew what they were doing... if you didn't think of him as wrong before he was covered in scars, you did afterward... you couldn't help it.  No one used his name.  He was just the kala'amātya, the blackthorn orphan, and I was my mother's only son."  The gall that coloured his account spilled into his expression and he shook his head, still unwillingly immersed, before looking at her again.  "But you can't beat things out of anyone... you beat it into them, and one day the priestesses realised they’d made something that knew more about terrorization than they did.  I know it's easy to write my brother off just as something you cross the road to avoid, but you have to give him props for surviving the kind of shit that would've pounded someone else into the ground.  That’s what I tell myself when he’s pouring petrol over something I own.  But, to cut a long story short, he put it all to good use and now he’s a property-speculating professional assassin.”

Susan choked as she swallowed.

“Oh my god... he’s going to bury me in the garden...” 
“Avai’sahdi...” he murmured fondly.  “Just promise me you will never, ever tell him that you know.  About any of this.”

She stared at him.

“He’s going to know."
"He'd never believe I had the guts to tell you."  
“You’re lucky I’m this trolleyed.” she sighed, emitting a small belch into her hands and frowning back at him as he drank the vodka in her glass.  Suspicion made a brief return to her demeanour, then dissolved amid the inebriety that allowed her to hear his replies without sliding beneath the weight of them.  
“Go back to picturing me naked.” William suggested.  
“Will you please stop saying that?  I’ve only just gotten your knob out of my head!” she exclaimed, to the dismay of the tables within earshot.  "But... so, you're all that's left?"
"Most probably.  There are others.  Other others.  Not like us, more like... what you might expect.  More traditional.”  He could see that she was not following him and struggled for a some more illustrative proem.  "The people who came to the house party, Étienne and Luc... I think Caleb was there, but that’s sort of hazy... anyway... they’re loupgarous.”  

She leant over to reply to the pronouncement.

“I don’t know what that is.” 
“You know... full moon, empty head, hormonal... itchy... scratchy... furry?”  He covered his mouth with his hand and continued.  “Werewolves.  They get pissed off when you call them that, so don't.”  He watched her sit with the term resounding in her head, like a gem plucked from a mosaic, suggestive of the whole and yet hopelessly partial.
“You mean like... what?  Changing into things?  Really doing it?”
“Really doing it.  Fais-moi confiance... there's nothing more real than a simpering tweaker turning into something that wants to fuck your brains out your nose and eat your organs.  You don’t er... seem shocked.”  
“I just... like the way you say fuck.  But no, I’m not really surprised... I sort of always imagined they existed."
"Really?"
"There was a strange man on the bus when I went to middle school, always sitting at the back in a big blue tartan coat, even when it was baking... I used to think he was a werewolf.  Or a pedophile.  You can be both, I suppose.”
“That’s... amazingly disturbing.  But er, whatever you do, don’t use the wuh-word.  They’re alujha, in their own language."
"Is it really a curse?  That does sound stupid."  

William shook his head.

"It's a manly-testicular thing... hereditary.  You're born into it.  The girls are all witches and they never get fur.  It's all very... close, if you know what I mean.  En famille."
Susan pulled a face.
“Are they alright?  To be around?”
“Well...”  His head fell back as he pondered the question.  “Depends what you’re used to.  They were the first freak friends I ever made, but I wouldn't call them easy.  They’re...”  William's eyes narrowed as a list of defects suggested themselves.  "Twitchy, sneaky... thrifty... cliquey.  The old-money families... cartels... none of them would piss on you if you were on fire, so there's a lot of douchebag fund bunnies with yachts and villas.  At the other end there's the er, banjo alujha... the ones that drink out of fishbowls and panic on travelators.  They're all better company than vampyres, though.” 
 She shook her head emphatically and tipped vodka down her throat.
"You're having a laugh now.  People turning into things, I can believe.  It could be genetic or something, and I can deal with that, for some reason... but once you’re dead, that’s end of it.  I’ve seen dead bodies... you can’t come back from that.”
William chuckled.
"You don’t come back.  It’s like Turkmenistani baggage claim.  And don't spout that incrédlité too loudly... you’ll start getting sunset courtesy calls... glossy, slightly soiled brochures.  They’re like used car salesmen... show the slightest fucking interest and they’ll jump the chain and before you know it you will absolutely believe the best way to see eternity is from the inside of a dead body.”  She looked back at him with an accusing grimace; he smiled at it.  “If I was going to curse someone, it would be to condemn them to their own fucking company indefinitely.  That’s how it is for vampyres.  It’s you and your clothes and your flatlining genitalia et c'est tout."  He let his gaze direct hers.  “I can see two right now."
"Bollocks."
"Toupée lizard, twelve o’clock, chulo Rolex... undead.  Nine o’clock by the wall... gated community queen, pearls, cashmere.  Undead.  She probably volunteers at shelters so she can eat homeless kids.”  Susan glanced between the nominated pair for as long as she dared, unable to decide if they were innately unappealing or merely victims of his suggestion.  His gaze conveyed his enjoyment of her skepticism.  “Neckfuckers.  Easy to spot once you know how.  And they smell like a dead cat on a hot fucking day, but you don’t get the full nosal experience.”  He shook his head at her.  “You can't just squint away the evil dead, poupée... you have to be careful.  You're sucré to them."
"You mean they like short, pudgy spotty girls?" she laughed. 

He reached around the table and lifted her handbag, withdrawing her powder compact and holding its mirror so that she could appreciate her own reflection.  The lamplit colours of her face stood in solidarity with his assertion.

"Think how you look, to someone who loves only blood."  She accepted his suggestion, stare sliding toward him as he sat back.  "Vampyre heaven is full of pretty girls and rohypnol daiquiris.  You’ve already come this close.”  William held his thumb and forefinger together.  Her blank look persisted.  “Opal’s art thing.  She was going to jump you in the cool room.”

Susan’s rebuttal tailed off as the night returned to her in its entirety.  

“That was you who knobbled her?” she exclaimed, lowering her voice self-consciously.  Her hand slipped down under the linen and squeezed his appreciatively.  “Very brave.”  
“Orgasmically satisfying... she launders Ed’s income, so she’s got him in this heinous fucking headlock, but, hey... who doesn’t want a bloodsucker swinging from their dewlap?”  His bitterness surprised her; she looked again at the people he had pointed out.
“Where are their fangs?”
“They don't have any... their teeth start falling out after a while, and these are just the last to go." he explained, indicating his own cosmetic canines with his tongue.  "They have their own dentists.  That’s where I get my daywear grille."
"Take it out." she urged, clapping her own teeth together in unconscious anticipation.  William sighed and slid the slender veneer from his mouth, at which she smiled delightedly, forced to distract herself by brushing breadcrumbs from her lap.
"Anyway... my vampyre advice is to watch out for PVC-faced space invaders, and if you’re going to pass out somewhere at night, make sure it’s in a dyke bar.  Vampyres and witches are like oil and something that’s going to tie oil up and set it on fire and dance naked while it’s burning.”  
"Do they not fancy you?"
"Apparently, to a bloodsucker, I'm about as appetising as a giant green banana."  
"You talk to them?"
"Er... yeah.  They're sort of everywhere." he grinned.  "The emergency exit's over there, Christabel, don't worry... but before you lose your shit and flee, can I just say, now that I’ve got this much vodka onboard, that it feels great to tell you this stuff so thanks for listening.” 
“I’m too scared to do a runner now.”
“I’m always pessimistic.  It helps with... you know... reality.”
“Must be depressing being pessimistic for three hundred and seventy six reverse dog years.” she laughed.
“Meh... the pessimists survived Pompeii.  They’re still excavating the positive-thinking types, all crispy in their yoga poses.”

Susan burped gently and covered her mouth, sparing him the sight of its contents.

“Well, I already know that beating the shit out of people for money is what you’re doing at the moment... but what did you do before that for a living?”  William rolled his eyes expansively.  "It's probably better to tell me while I'm drunk." she added, reaching for her glass; he had surreptitiously placed a nasturtium in it, and the orange flower floated atop the vodka like a thirsty butterfly.  She plucked it from the tumbler and consumed it.  "You’ve got until the tiramisu to give me some sort of... mission statement about yourself or I’m going home.”

He grimaced in distress at her requirement.

“Mountains... I like mountains.  Love them.  And bathtubs... you can't take me to a plumbing showroom... if I see anything porcelain and freestanding the blood drains right out of my fucking head.  I’m... sort of partially religious.  I don’t like to offend elephants.  I  judge livestock.  Sometimes I bite my own toenails.  I’m... ambidextrous, double jointed and built to scale, but erm, ha ha... you knew that already...” he laughed as she scowled.  
"You're not a bloody buddhist, are you?"
"No no, hell no... I just can't with that stuff.  Enlightenment sounds like something that should happen to teeth." he laughed again.  "I'd rather be a prawn or a donkey than a buddha to be totally fucking honest.  Why piss away all those saṃsāras humping nothingness when you can blow your porchlight in a crack house and fucking get it over with?"
"A lot of people would say it's not the same thing."

He spread his arms in a theatrical yawn and settled one behind her, letting it slide to the small of her back. 

"Well, the sun's going to explode eventually, so why stop at dessert with that adorable drunk stranger?"
"I haven't decided if I'm going to." she replied.  The course in question arrived, three times as large as had been served to the other diners, on a giant white plate dressed in crumpled gold leaf and a crisp, outré praline; they stared together at its almost portentous magnificence, and though daunted, Susan picked up her spoon and excised a generous portion.  "Were you ever on, with Lilian?"
"No, never.  Amis sans avantages."  The assurance survived her skeptical amusement; devouring her first taste of the dessert Susan nodded to herself, then took another, frowning conscientiously through the process.  With the spoon she picked the gleaming leaf out of the cream and lifted it to his lips in a slightly infernal spirit of inquiry.  “You want me to eat gold... and cream?  Do you have any idea what could happen if I swallow this?" he asked.
"No."  She held it to his mouth with a bright-eyed smile and he relented; still smiling, she slid her legs over his own and shuffled onto his lap, where she felt his hand in the warm crook of her knee.  “What does it taste like to you?”
“Like a cow sitting on a throne.”  The other diners began to frown once more toward the sight of them but she abandoned the tiramisu, chuckling while her fingers traced his smooth chin and wandered slowly down his neck, which she kissed, chastely, until her lips parted and her teeth closed on his skin, incited by its inviting texture.  It sent a small, galvanic shudder through him.  “Christabel...” he whispered.
“Why do you call me that?”
“Because I fancy you.” 
“You fancy everyone.”  The hand she dropped out of sight between them descended past his belt, discovering and wandering over the condition her attentions had already begun to rouse.  
"Young lady, these are my best pants, and... nom de dieu, if you don't stop that I'm going to have to tip the drycleaner again."  His phone began to vibrate in his back pocket, buzzing through their chair.  
“See who it is...”
“It’s Frost.” 
“She might need you for something.”
“She’ll want me to pick her up.” 
“Don’t make her wait...” Susan urged, her arm around his shoulder and her warm breath in his ear.  “I should say, though, if we go home now, I definitely will probably sleep with you, because I’m so drunk... so that’s sort of... something.  But if I get a taxi, when I wake up I’ll be sober and I might sleep with you later on, but... I don’t know... I might go back to thinking you’re too strange.  But I would be sober and... you know... that would be, probably...”
He pulled an anxious face at her wandering proposition.
“Susan... you’re making me choose between ice cream that’s melting right now and ice cream that's on the horizon... that’s what Satan wants you to do... don't encourage him!”  She made a series of small, low noises as she resumed her intemperate exploration, and William sighed again.  "Frost better be trapped in a lift by radioactive whore-seeking zombies.” he complained, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he glanced toward the door. 

Helping Susan into a taxi and watching it drive her away was an exercise in smiling self control that had almost defeated him when she slid across to make room, giggling and patting the upholstery with a wanton grin.  Having watched the vehicle out of sight along the avenue, William attended to his phone, blowing a sigh as he put it to his ear.
“I’m in the car right now.”
“No, hey it’s cool, I met a trick... I’ll meet you out front in an hour.” Lilian assured him, dragging on her cigarette.  William rubbed an eye with his free hand, speaking through his teeth.
“I just sent Susan home after she made several lewd offers of her person.” 
“Wow... to you?” she laughed.  He threw his phone down onto the passenger seat and pulled the Jaguar into a wide U-turn across the avenue, directing it back toward Avalon.

C O N T I N U E D   N E X T   W E E K
© céili o'keefe   do not reproduce

Owing to shit weather/general laziness, I hadn't been up to the top garden for at least a week; last night I had a tremendously green dream dense with beans that just got larger and larger as I picked them and wouldn't stop growing on the vine.  Deciding that I was remote viewing my scarlet runners, we went up with a colander to visit the gigantic sagging teepee of leguminous abundance and could have filled a coal bucket, so yeah... some monsterism.

Anyway- plums.  Prune Stanley, to be precise, a continental as opposed to Japanese variety originally intended to supply a sweet plum low in acid and supposedly ideal for drying.

These are mostly/almost ripe and will continue to soften and sweeten in the bowl.  We don't wash our fruit until required for ingestion.  Prune Stanley are greenish-gold fleshed, free(ish)-stoned and superbly sweet eating, a nice change from the more sour/acidic plums you might be familiar with.  Plant one today.

Sitting in a box window with glossy white painted framing and astragals all around me.  I am eating tinned tuna from a white porcelain bowl.  Peripherally there is a dark green and quite flowerless garden to my right in what looks like a stretch of half-finished or neglected villa garden.  Behind my right shoulder and in the narrow lateral window opening there is a scuttling sound, then a speckled falcon.  I pick a piece of tuna from the bowl and offer it to the bird without looking, almost absently, and it is taken eagerly.  It climbs onto my shoulder then down into my lap where I let it eat more fish from the bowl.  Its beak is panelled and polished like cloisonné enamel. 

R E M A R K S: This was a stretch of much longer/extremely convoluted dream, the rest of which I can't remember.  The falcon- there is only one species in NZ and we don't see it here; this bird has no special personal significance or associations as far as I'm aware, although its presence did seem to be indicative or symbolic of something.  It was pale-ish and speckled, more like a Saker than a Peregrine.  I was pleased by the bird's confiding manner; raptors can be grabby and stroppy in person but this one was just quiet and deliberate.  I'm glad I fed it; it seemed the right thing to do.  I didn't recognise the house or situation, but I did make a tuna sandwich for my partner the other day.  The brain is a very strange place.  (pic wikipedia)

At least 20 pieces.  And yes, I am losing my shit right now, wandering back and forth through a wilderness of handwoven goodness whilst saliva runs from both corners of my mouth and my head is bursting with colours and stitches and sparkles and sequins and couching and...  If I thought they could stand the rough treatment, I would roll around on them like the Southpark dad over that bed full of groupies.

Here is a small preview- I will blog the lot in the fullness of time as there are some glorious things and I don't believe this domestic stuff gets the respect it deserves.  Some things are really quite old in themselves as well as representing some very archaic forms and ideas.  I hope you enjoy them.

Had you ever heard of her?  Me neither, until about a year ago when I was browsing iTunes for some Björk side projects and listened to this random track from the album Sinaa.  She's Inuit and employs a range of traditional and creative vocal techniques.  I have broad musical tastes but they don't really stretch to full-on throat singing etc as far as recreational listening is concerned (I can feel it too much in the tissues of my own neck, like someone is flicking my larynx or something eeek).  Tagaq doesn't go there in this piece which is probably the most accessible on the album, but it is hauntingly beautiful and that little chant has bothered me for a twelve month.

Give it a try.  Listen to it three times; let it soak into your fibres.  Still is already on the imaginary soundtrack for the second book :)  Uh oh.

“I never thought I’d get to say this out loud, but if you don’t stop remembering my nakedness I’m going to drive into the back of a catering truck.” William assured his passenger.  Susan's involuntary laughter vindicated him immediately.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking!” she exclaimed, reaching down to claim the bottle of vodka in the foot well as the Jaguar slowed into a backed-up lane.  “That’s not what it was anyway." she lied, unscrewing the cap.  She tried to decide if it was the vehicle or William’s driving that had altered in her estimation, not allowing herself to consider his proximity as the sole source of her distraction.  Their association had changed pitch, transmuted from curiosity into the warm, entailing drag of an undertow that pulled ceaselessly toward him, its force augmented by every piece of conversation, private glance and moment that she sat beside him, watching his strange white hand on the gear stick.  It seemed disembodied at the end of his sleeve, the dark, shaggy mantle of his black coat suggesting the skin of some alien fruit diametrically at odds with its contents.  What she had already seen of those contents in the darkness of the garage returned with disconcerting frequency in spite of her denial, inspiring a smile that she kept toward neighbouring vehicles as they entered the downtown grid.  "There is actually something I'm dying to ask you, but I don't know if I should..."
"Hit me."
"Who's El Resto del Mundo, and does he wear a mask?” she spluttered as the question broke into a fit of laughter.  He ran his tongue over his teeth, gripping the wheel with both hands as he shook his head.
“I’m going to fucking kill Frost.”
“Don’t blame Lilian...” she sighed.  “She was only trying to warn me.”  Tricolor lights changed over the heads of the pedestrians crowding the corner; they watched her check her eyeliner in her compact mirror then take a long, oblivious draught of vodka, as though she were some spectacle arranged to expedite their boredom.  Susan grew conscious of the attention and set the bottle down, but not before someone addressed her from the footpath.

“Hey baby, you wanna suck on something, suck on this shit here!” the stranger recommended, his hand thrust down the front of his red velour pants, to the ebrious amusement of three companions who slapped his shoulders and smirked at her expression, chuckling over the brown paper bags at their chins.  William's gaze slid from the tall flame at the end of his cigarette toward the heckler, who lifted his hands and swung them out into a swaggering gesture of contempt.  “What, fool?  What?” the latter demanded.  Before his challenge was concluded William had leapt up onto his seat, across Susan's legs and stood on top of the passenger door with the telescopic baton in his fist, stare full of retinal flash as the offending party stumbled backward into one another.  She sat with her arms folded, scowling up at him; he blinked down at her and dropped his arms to his sides in a wordless adjournment, murmuring only as he stepped back over her and sank behind the wheel. 

“No mask, then?” Susan inquired dryly.
“Sometimes...” he admitted.  “I overreact.  Sorry about that.”  
"Why didn’t you just blow his head off with your stupid gun?”
“You made me leave it at home.”  He smiled at her scowl and took the bottle from her, swigging and then dropping it behind the door panel as they passed a police car.  “El Resto wears a patent gimp hood... silver, with lightning bolts.  It gives your marks a false sense of security.  Frost’s idea.” 

They drove south into a more gracious, tree-lined quarter where Georgian columns, artful topiary and wine-coloured awnings imposed an entirely different, but no less insistent atmosphere.  Susan watched them slide by with a hand pressed to her frowning forehead as she divined William’s intent.  

"You're not trying to take me somewhere nice, are you?"  He swung into a private park outside the classical facade of a restaurant infamous for its exclusive policy and she sat unmoving, loath to disembark.  “Everyone who works here says the owner is a gobshite and the kitchen's horrible.” she asserted, looking over at him.  The valet hesitated at his post then came forward to greet them, reluctance visibly retarding his advance.  William intercepted him with a neatly-administered gratuity and held Susan's hand while she untangled her heel from the strap of her handbag.  “They won’t let us in...” she whispered, unsuccessfully resisting his attempt to sweep her toward the doorman.  “I look like a bag lady and you look like... a gothic wookie.”
“I found this coat at the Hellfire, en fait."
“The Devil probably left it there because it was freaking him out!” she laughed, leaning out from the arm he closed around her waist as though attempting dissociation.  “Bondage muppet... let me go!  They won't let us in..."   

The doorman belied her assertions by admitting them to the foyér, accepting the tip William conveyed without comment.  Beyond the guarded portal the décor attempted to preserve the dignity of its antique fundamentals within thickly-lavished luxe, resulting in a stagnant, gold-choked ambiance, oxygen supplanted by gruesome fragrances fuming from the trophy wives and editors awaiting tables.  Like stooping falcons they marked the maître d' with dark-ringed stares, subjecting him to their leaden telepathy.  The grey-blonde man approached Susan and William in his heavy white shirt as though testing river ice, addressing them in a voice like cold water issued through his nostrils.

“Mr Lamb, I’m afraid we cannot seat you and your guest tonight...”  

William interrupted confidentially.

“Let’s skip the shit... this is all Opal La Rue, right?”  

The man pursed his lips, turned his back to the other prospective diners and leant from the hip to reply, abandoning his modulation to a low drawl.

“My hands are tied... she says she’s going keep her top shelf clients out of here if you get service.”
“Where’s the owner?”
“Oh he’s in Malibu, trying to dick his ex-wife out of child support.”
“So there’s no real problem...”
“His bitch GF could walk in here at any moment and she is hell in a handbasket before she gets to twisting nutsacks in the kitchen.” the man assured him.  William nodded sagely and bestowed another generous token of his appreciation in the act of patting the man's arm.  The latter quantified the offering with a quick glance, smiled momentarily and led them into the dining room.  “If Opal shows, I can’t have any drama.” he warned, calling in wait staff with a flick of his wrist and seating them toward the rear of the chamber.  “You can eat the venison, the pasta won’t hospitalize anybody but the ravioli... not so much.  And the amuse-bouche is super cute, but don’t put it in your mouth.”

Susan sat down slowly into her thickly-padded chair.  The room wore ponderous doubled drapery and clusters of rotund vintage jardiniers crammed with mounds of coral and ivory peonies; the tables sighed under their lamps and smothering linen, flocked papers and spongy wheaten carpet sealing every surface seamlessly.  Against the stew of lukewarm colours William seemed like an artifact transposed from an alternate reality in his narrow black shirt and tie, and she guessed correctly that Lilian had imposed them in an act of promotional sophistry.  She brushed the skirt of her melon-pink dress from the sides of her chair, the set of her mouth holding unspoken apprehension.  Their waiter appeared at her shoulder.

"Um... can we have vodka, please?  A bottle?" she said quietly.
"Perhaps you've seen the wine list, we..."
"I don't really drink wine... just some vodka... whatever you've got thanks.  In a carafe."  As he retreated she murmured to herself and looked down into her lap, then gazed around the other patrons.  For the first time Susan saw the scowls and stares, the half-conscious expressions of suspicion William dragged in his wake, the attention that had followed him to their table outstaying its welcome.  “Do you notice people looking anymore?” she whispered, reaching for the carafe when it arrived and pouring for them both.  “I think the lady behind you is choking on her breadstick.”  
“Not really.  I suppose it’s like being a girl and getting used to people staring at your breasts.” he volunteered, downing the glass in one.
“You don’t get used to that.”
"Really?  Oh... je vous prie officiellement de m'excuser."

She addressed her own liquor with similar determination.  Silence descended as they sat behind their glasses, gazing about themselves and fidgeting; she coughed, surprised to see that he enjoyed no more ease than she did, reminded again of something she had meant to tell him in the car.  

"I'm sorry, for what I did with... the um, knife... I'm not the sort of person who goes around stabbing people, usually."  Susan leant over the table to convey the verb discreetly.  He bowed his own head in reply, keeping his voice low.
"Just so you know for next time, there's an etiquette... anything deeper than the first knuckle and it's two dozen lilies and a cheesecake, minimum, or it's on... blood feud."  Her stare persisted beyond the intent of his remark.  "Me make joke." he added, at which she sighed; they glanced down at their respective scars, then at each other, the unwitting unison exacerbating their discomfiture.  "I'm thinking that at this point we should just get fucked up." he added.  They drank together, their smiles returning with the first flush of spiritous relief.  "Don't worry about the arm, cloudcheeks... I grabbed you like a crazy gorilla."  The vodka's gratifying burn eroded something of the bounds imposed by caution and Susan looked down again into her lap as she composed herself.
"Why don't you have a beard?"  The query broke down into a giggle that she was forced to wave away.  "Sorry... sorry..."
“I don't need one.  See... this is why I don't tell anybody." he sighed.  "I don’t know where to start and it all sounds completely fucked when it comes out... I need a montage.”  
"Shhh... I can do this..." Susan insisted, waving her laughter away.  "How about how old you are?  That's an easy one."  He hunched his shoulders in a gesture of disinclination.  "You must have some idea..."
"I really don't."
"How can you not know?"  William looked back at her pensively.
"I couldn't read until the twenties, and I can hardly write my own name now.  I can't add up past my fingers and toes."
"Oh for god's sake... so what are you, then?  A hundred?  Two?  If you won't tell me I'll just assume you're... three hundred and twenty six."
William folded his arms across his chest and gave a short cough downward.
"In dog years."
"What?"
"Reverse dog years..."
"How do you mean dog years?  That's one year equals..."  Her gaze wandered while she attempted the arithmetic.  "No, that would be seven times three hundred and twenty six..."
"Honestly Christabel, my entire life is eighty percent dirt-coloured blur... sitting on a horse waiting to be somewhere else while someone pounds on about banging their cousin at a cherry fair for twenty fucking miles and wondering how sand got in my fucking apple.”  
"William, that's a massive lie.  So much has happened to you that I can actually see it poking out your ears.  But you're not that old." she assured him, returning to the point that continued to exercise her.  "You can't be.  You'd be the smartest person in the world."  

He brightened suddenly, his relief at her assertion undermining it immediately.  Knocking a knife from the table with his elbow, he excused himself and stooped to retrieve it; when he did not immediately reappear she leant out with a frown until a hand snaked from the linen and whipped away the piece of paper on her knees.  William reversed and settled back into his chair, spreading her page of notes beside his plate and smiling at the questions she had overwritten and underscored, tucking his hair behind his ear.  

"Am I a species?" he laughed.  "Do I have children?  Putain!"
 Susan shaded her gaze with her hand.
"I crossed that one out." she complained.
"A species?  Er... pass.  Illegitimi?  I've been warned that it's technically possible, but it's all... you know... perihelion, blood sacrifice, and I'm pretty sure I would have spotted someone cutting the head off a buffalo while I was fucking their sister.  What?" he laughed.  "You asked..."
"No I didn't..."   

William studied her script again.

"Did it smell bad?" 
"I mean the past!  That's what we're told at school.  Can I have that back, please?"
"It stank pretty bad, actually... people, baggage trains, clothing... living in a town was like being wedged in a fucking feltbeater’s armpit.  It's not like that in the mountains.  But soap is good... I was happy to see it."  Turning the page over, he selected another inquiry.  "Did women really think men were superior?”  Susan’s nose wrinkled as he spoke.  "Er... I'm not really a man, and when I think about it, I can't say I've ever felt especially appreciated in a god-like fashion by girls... I run with a bad crowd, though."  William's hand went to his pocket before he remembered he was not allowed to smoke.  "People haven't really changed.  Same shit, different d..."
"What about Hitler?" she interjected.  His eyes roved slowly until it became clear that he did not understand the question.  "I mean... did you see that coming?"
"Oh... yeah.  They're all one guy really, the horde-mongers."
"How do you mean?"
"Vertically challenged, romantically declined and fashion-forward.  Whenever I see three hundred people dressed the same way, I pack up my shit before the screaming starts.  Except with the Xiongnu... the first you ever heard from them was a hundred fucking onion planters bolting past the front gate, closely followed by fifteen thousand mounted archers.  But er... what was the question?"
"What it was like to be a girl, before you could vote or get divorced..." she pressed. 
"Like being gay these days.  Fine til someone stabs you to death while people stand around chanting that you had it coming.”  He refilled their glasses.  “Everything came down to location... something that was hilarious in one place got you dunked in pitch ten miles down the road."  Scratching his chin, he shrugged, looking for some meaningful summary.  "You’re lucky you were born... when was it?  Yesterday?”  The sound of her laugh relieved him, though he struggled with his tie, loosening the knot against its unaccustomed enclosure.
"You can take it off." Susan grinned.
"I haven't worn one since the fucking boat over here.  Frost keeps putting them on me... says I look less feral."  

She stowed it in her handbag.
"Where were you coming from?"
"France... lived there on and off for a while, Paris, Gévaudan... hence the parler."
"There aren't that many of you about, are there?"
"Is it that obvious?"
"It's... the way you are, and with your brother.  Like there's no one else."
“Well, there's Ed and me... Bede, you met... Nyāti... that’s his better half..."  William looked up from his plate as he came to the end of the slender demographic.  Her gaze was drawn back to her scars.
"Was this any of them?" she asked, turning her wrist toward him.  He took it in his hand and passed a thumb over the pale striations regretfully.
"Honestly, no... I don't know who did that, but when I do, they'll wish they hadn't."
"I don't want more trouble, William, so just... promise me you won't overreact."  His difficulty committing to her stipulation prompted her to pick up his hand, transfer it to the carafe and pour for them both once more.  Its task complete, she smoothed his fingers out across the linen and employed the vase of flowers to seclude her surreptitious exam.  "The first thing I thought to ask was how you ended up like this, because I don't believe you evolved or anything..."
"Christabel, that's a very... somethingist assumption." he complained, wincing faintly as she subjected his digits to a series of arduous mechanical appraisals until she discovered that his nails slid from their beds into thick, hooked curves; they retracted smoothly as she let go and pressed her own hand to her mouth.  Their waiter stood clutching a fresh carafe.  "Do you want to eat?” William asked.  She took up the menu.
“I’ll... I can't um... I'm having trouble thinking..." she admitted.  "I'll have the... what is that?”  She leant across to point out an item on the list, shifting around the table to sit inside the arm he lifted to accommodate her.
“Three kinds of wild mushrooms in... ah... ahem, cream sauce, and some sort of noodle.” he explained, perusing the french terms.
“Is it very big?” she asked the attendant.  “I’m really hungry.”  Glancing around, she saw to her dismay that baroque presentation took precedence over portion size.  “I’ll have whatever that was, and... do you have trifle?”
“Trifle?”
“Sort of... a cake in a bowl with jam...”  

William shared the man's dubious expression.

“We have a very fine Tiramisu.” the waiter offered.
“Is it very...”  
“No.  It is not very big.  But I will tell the patissier of his mistake.” he hissed.
“Tell him how you lost your fucking tip while you’re there.” William mused.  “Nasturtiums and figs.  Thanks.”
“You want... flowers?”
“On a plate, with figs.”

They watched the man walk, stiff-necked, back to the kitchen with their orders.

“I’m going to get a gob in my pasta.” Susan predicted, glancing over her shoulder; as soon as he was gone she dragged William's hand out from under the table and resumed her examination, singling out his extraneous finger.  "Does it have a name?" she asked of it.
"No."
"So go on, then..." she urged.  "About why you are."  

He emptied his glass again.

T H I S   P I E C E   C O N T I N U E D   N E X T   W E E K
© céili o'keefe   do not reproduce

God I love her paintings.  Wish I could afford to buy the whole lot and fill our bedroom with her gorgeous vision but one darn print will have to do.  Check out her work via the Tappan Collective site HERE.

When it comes to the price of cosmetics, I have a pretty active gag reflex.  Anything over $35 NZD better be earth-shatteringly fuckable if you're asking me. With this in mind, I still went out and spent nearly $60 on this Guerlain Rouge G lipstick in Gigolo.  Why, you might reasonably ask?  Well, it's the sex, emulsified and heavily pigmented and wrapped in shiny, shiny mirrors.  It is sleek and heavy and almost purrs when you pick it up.  But never mind the bollocks- I feel the ridiculous pricetag warrants an in-depth review so brace for detail.

The colour is difficult to describe.  It's represented pretty well in the first pic. If it were the product of some twisted reproductive equation I would characterize that as MAC Rebel getting with Urban Decay Catfight who was maybe already hitting MAC Vino pencil on the low, knowmsayn?  A decadent purply crimson-stained berry with a dark fuchsia twist.  Little to no shimmer; deliciously lustrous, especially initially.  You probably don't have anything quite like it (I know I don't), which is why it may be worth closing one eye to avoid the + postage total whilst burning through checkout.

Pigment distribution is what differentiates the good from the bad when it comes to darker lipsticks.  Some of the recent MAC Retro Mattes clump hard and absolutely require loosening up which well... defeats the whole exercise as far as texture goes.  Gigolo is smooth and impossibly even, in that the shade seems completely integrated with the texture and doesn't settle or gather at the edges and corners when you're applying.

By six pm there was slight, discreet bleed happening and a 30% loss of product, so for something shiny, it held up well.  You might get from the swatches below that Gigolo is quite translucent and that is true- it appears darker and more blue-purple on my lips than on the hand, so if you're pigmented like me you'll see a different shade.  It's an amazingly beautiful mixer, producing a range of divine fuchsias and off-purples with things like MAC Fuchsia lipmix and Beet lip pencil.

The bad news?  The bullet won't stand up on its own and in fact the whole packaging feels environmentally disastrous.  I know Guerlain are luxe-orientated, but you'd think they'd be a bit more sensitive about the whole trashing the planet for the sake of rich-bitch trinkets by now.  As much as I love the formula, I won't be investing in more new product from this brand for this very reason (Edit: that's a bit of an exaggeration).  Some of you won't love Guerlain's signature 'violet' scent which ranges in character from nana's least annoying perfume to expensive dishwashing liquid according to temperature and ambient conditions.  No, I don't know why they stick with it either.  The bullet mirrors distort slightly too, which I think is bloody cheeky given the price tag.

No.... yes.... errr, maybe... maybe one... okay both... both?... separately... separately... okay, together... err...

I am bathing naked in a narrow, shallow trickling stream bordered by a thin skirt of jungly growth; it is waist-deep at most, and there is a narrow bridge at the short distance with the odd person crossing, but I don't care and they don't seem to see me.  Then I am in some sort of pale tiled shower room in a resort nearby; it has a single inadequate hinged door panel for privacy, and at first I am slightly concerned, then I realise I don't care about that either.  Someone who looks like the actor Tom Hardy is there with me, also naked, and we use the same small white bar of soap.  We smile at each other.  Our bodies share a pale, robust quality and we are about the same height.  My partner arrives; I put on the strange dress he has bought me- black and white and sort of blotchy like ikat and tied on around by neck with a weird, webbed string arrangement.  We walk along the street for a while and I can feel my wet hair dripping down my back.

Then I'm at some sort of nightclub waiting for music, because I want to dance.  I'm sitting beside two performers who are dressed in black lycra and dark silver duct tape and I realise there's going to be some kind of show, so I take a seat. It's vaguely acrobatic, but quite low key until a troupe of silky white horses come on in unison; they are plumed and graceful but their sole purpose seems to be to withstand the great blast of noisy music that is directed at them, because they remain calm and exit soon after.  Now I am sitting much further back from the stage and the person sitting next to me is an annoying 70's lothario type with an open shirt, shaggy bleached hair and large formal shoes; he is leaning over and invading my space, resting one of his shoes on my shin.  I tell him to fuck off and push him back, then announce that I'm going to inform security; he is angry and follows me into what becomes a wooded paddock at night.

My accusations become more shrill and lurid as I try to deter him from following me; I encounter a young girl in a lavender night dress who is being followed by someone sinister and together we make for the doorway that will bring us back to the nightclub.  The room inside is like the interior of a cramped backstage greenroom divided into two parts.  Someone says that everyone with a complaint or a story should go to the larger area and we shuffle in together.  The man who wouldn't leave me alone is walking back and forth outside and his shoes are making leaf litter and dirt come in under the decrepit wall and onto the wooden floor beside me.

REMARKS: The first half of this dream felt quite peaceful and adventurous; I was slightly aware that I was dreaming while it unfolded.  As I've gotten older I've found I have far less fucks to give about nudity and my body and losing a bit of weight has reminded me what it was like to be hotter, lol.  I own an ikat dress and fancy a few more.  Tom Hardy- yes I would, but it would have to be with my eyes closed (that fucking ghetto ink just kicks me in the ladyballs) and I probably wouldn't tell anyone.

I used to be an inveterate clubkid who really enjoyed the shamanic/transcendent aspects of trance night.  Back then it was just about losing your little mind in a dervish-like manner but these days clubs just seem to be a big narcissistic shit show full of hard-posing rich kids and that killed my love for it stone dead.  Maybe I should take more drugs?

Horses represent my personal and artistic agency blah blah and yes, they're not doing much right now.

Creepy guys often have Lynchian significance in my dreams for reasons I won't bore you with; I am battling a sort of mild if extremely tenacious bout of depression at the moment that I fear is seeping into deeper layers, hence the debris trickling in under the wall despite the assumption of sanctuary.  Fuck.

At night, beneath a half-made, emblematic moon, Toledo was a crumbling fist of cracked shapes sliding downhill from the slab-flanked Alcazar into its encircling gorge.  Street lamps washed its flat facades with desiccated meringue pink and slaked white between caliphal arches and the anxious gothic tracery of Catholic piles.  An imposing colonnade kept the face of the old mudéjar palace in a depth of shadow that recalled the umbrage of a bodhi tree; from his seat beneath it in an aged cane chair Edward watched the darkness crawl backward from the moonlight.  Behind him in an apartment sectioned from one of the mansion's great arcades, a man and woman began to shout at one another, their fervid accusations transmitted by the door glass between them and the balcony.  Their antagonism proved an inadvertent summons to an eager and unwelcome ghost, the melange of living and long dead in its cortege refusing his consigning will. 

Another balcony took shape before his eyes, open to the nocturnal sky, couchant balusters of limestone standing unmoved even as white hands grasped their parapet and drew a woman over it, as tall as he and sewn into an open robe gown of insolent, poppy-red silk.  She attended to its skirts, brushing them down around herself and putting back her head, touching white fingers to the fortune in heavy pear diamonds at her ears.  Their facets threw galaxies against her neck when she turned toward the lanterns, sharing their coldest qualities with her skin; dressers had employed the great length of her black hair in an intricate serpentine arrangement and trimmed it with a host of stars set en tremblant on silver pins.  But the bow of powered scarlet painted on her mouth could not prevent it from sliding back in a carcharhinid smirk as her green eyes rolled toward him, or dampen the intent that had drawn her past the dozing guards, through the brief jardin and into the hôtel particulier.   

"Kala'amātya... if you would only dance, we might not meet so often." she remarked sourly, referring to the blur of revellers sweeping past the glass behind him.  “But I do not wonder that you cannot... on nights such as this, I suspect your dead witch rises from her noyade to torment you.”  She pulled her fan from her sleeve and pushed its pearl-trimmed loop over her wrist.  “Helaine serves me from her grave.”  Her smirk dimmed a little at the sight of him, his garments of black silk and lustrous oyster satin merging with all that was sleek and cryptic about him, forcing her to content herself with the thought and not the sight of wounds concealed in his last profound.  "I would give much to know what you see when she returns to you... do you feel her, thrashing in the water, knowing she would have begged your help if she could have drawn breath?"  The scene resolved as clearly in her mind as his, a woman's bare feet walking the cold stones of a whale-grey square, its scurling crowd struck silent under a leaden sky.  Rana shook her head as though brought to some admission out of modesty.  "I do own, with all my art I could not have contrived her death if she had not gone to the drudenhaus of her own will... it does not vex me to say that.  I questioned her guards in my eagerness to know how she fared.  They feared her still and would not tell much... save that she kissed the rack... all the faces of the scum who paid to use her there, blessing those that fucked her in her chains and tore the hair from her head as keepsakes, for they bore no earthly likeness to you.”  Lifting her fan, she stroked the length of her own throat.  "Did you think that you could love her, Kala'amātya?  This is what these creatures crave." she observed.  "And did she not ponder where you might have learned such a thing, cutting throats and burning tents?"  His taciturnity began to round on her, as it so often did, his shape framed by the doors into the mirror-lined ballroom from which he was preferentially exiled, and she was expressly debarred.  "These drabs would do well to rejoice, since you'll have no other... what could be more loathsome than your attentions?”

Edward looked toward her as though the question was the first thing he had heard.

“Ask that of my brother.”  

The crowded chamber behind them was full of tintinabulatory laughter and soft plumed fans wielded by its trussed and spangled inmates as birth and fortune pursued each other beneath a ceiling painted with a vining legion of classical famille rose heroes and cavorting beasts.  Dancers swept the parquet on painted slippers and buckled kidskin, the men engulfed to their waists by the vast pannier skirts of their companions.  William gossiped with an heiress as they quartered the room in each other’s arms.

“Sachiin is mine after all this time and all your great works... though it is my dearest wish that I could poison him and throw him into the sea..."  Leaning over the balustrade on an elbow, Rana spat down into the garden.  "I would feed his flesh to crabs rather than see him use it to delight another... what might I have done with the world if I had not been so occupied in addressing his impiety?”  She turned another smirk on him.  "March to Cataya and back once more... beg him to abandon me, and stare until your eyes bleed.  He is my creature still."

The sarabande concluded, and the dancers excused themselves from one another, trading compeers or retiring to the shallow rank of spectators lining the walls with their fans beating the flush from their faces.  William returned to the corner beside the door, where he lifted the jewelled hand of another girl, clad in a violet coat and gown of iris-blue.  Edward turned to consider the scene through the small panes.

“In his devotion he has mistaken Céleste for you, even by the chandelier.” he observed.
“You may no longer distinguish one whore from another but I am able... he dances with the ugly farmer’s daughter.  The one called Céleste is consumptive, it is said, though I will make trial of her infirmity."  She found the pair in the midst of her promise, eyes bleached to a pale chartreuse by the sight of them.  Edward leant against the stone behind him while she choked down rage. 
“I doubt Céleste’s consumption." he continued, sliding a silver box from his waistcoat and flipping up a lid worked with a repoussé scene of Dionysus and his feminine retinue, from which he took a taste of opium and clove, voice planed of all inflection by undisguised loathing.  "The footmen can give good account of her vigor, though they’re stationed in the gatehouse.  She comes to us alone, or en compagnie, some of them more beautiful than she, others not so favoured, but this is Paris, so if they are not handsome, they are learned."  Rana cursed the patrician colour of his gaze, its ideal hue lending his judgements an authority she deplored, an irony of which she suspected him perfectly cognizant.  "I pay well for what is lavished on Sachiin gratis... as you say, I am neither charming nor dégagé, nor are my tastes."  The clawing scent of jasmine climbed the wall, breathed across the balcony by the warm air rising from the stone, and she struck at it with her fan as though it were some corporeal nuisance.  "When Céleste has had her fill her friends do willing service, and sometimes their husbands... their maids, the stable hands, the kitchen girls... I cannot rebuke his liberality, since he will have anyone, save you."  He smiled, the expression never more mirthless.  "And after all this, because you are never far from my thoughts, I send him to the second arondissement with enough money to last the week.  Despite my depraved counsel, or because of it, it is to Céleste that he returns... she is pleased enough to have him, and by never striving to command him, she surely does."  

He saw his reportage find its mark.  She came at him, skirts hissing around her feet like a stirring nest of snakes as she swung her fist at his face and he traded the blow for the advantage it conferred, pinning her to the wall by the doors to keep their altercation private.  His grasp on her throat reminded Rana too late of the price of violence against one so grimly versed in it, his hand forcing the side of her face against the stone, detaining her with the impersonal duress he might have applied to any restive animal.  He addressed her through his teeth.

"If I still live, it is to teach Sachiin to see you for the nothing that you are... I am little more myself, and await only the day he no longer pities you.  On that morning, I will drag you into the waves and hold you beneath them until you no longer wonder how Helaine fared in the water." he promised.

Framed by the slender astragals beside them, William's paramour responded to his smile by leading him back toward the door where he slid his hands across the satin at her bound waist and she craned to kiss his mouth, using their sudden remove from their acquaintances to enjoy a moment of ardent latitude.  A great, serpentine convulsion rolled through Rana's flesh as Edward released her; leaning forward over the wide bloom of her skirt as the crowd shifted and parted them, William's companion laughed and let him go, her train crushed against the door behind her.  

Rana smashed her own arms through the panes.  The framing splintered as she clutched the sleeves of the girl’s violet gown and dragged her through the wreckage of the door onto the balcony.  The noise turned the crowd into salt pillar figures as the girl cried out; her attacker seized her head and dragged it back, fist full of her yellow hair and drew a fat sickle of window glass across the woman’s throat in a grasp that split the flesh of her own cold fingers.  Blood jetted thickly at the wall and what remained of the doors, painting them a bright martial red, the colour pouring down over the girl’s powdered breasts and satin stomacher into the deep folds of her skirts.  Rana sawed through her throat with a slippery crimson hand, then dropped the glass and forced her white fingers into the wound to rip it wider still.

Swan-like women slumped to the floor, drowning in voluminous, petal-hued moiré as the ballroom echoed with their cries of horror; William threw off the hands that stayed him, leaping the fallen while Rana shed her shoes and picked up her skirts.  He caught her bloodied arm and jerked her back over the balustrade, the trembling corpse behind them jostled, slick, limp limbs bruised by careless heels as it was trodden underfoot by a surge of cursing men in their best coats and breeches, drawing their dress weapons and urging William to turn her over.  For a moment he kept hold of her, then let her go, watching her slide over the stone and drop into the narrow, shadowed strip of terraced garden.  Thinking they could give chase the revellers dashed back into the ballroom and downward through the house while manservants came with a bed sheet of lavender linen to drape the fair corpse, her blood darkening the weave as they transported it past great drifts of senseless beauties.

"Is that enough for you, Sachiin?" Edward asked his brother from the door.  William murmured something beneath his breath, and Edward hauled him back, forcing him to gaze down at the slick spilled from the girl’s throat.  “Ai’i bahai sahsa’ih si sthi’ani.” he told him, letting him go and striding through the blood into the ballroom.  "It is enough for me." 

Behind the colonnade, Edward rose from the chair and turned to the tall glass doors, lifting one side on its hinges so as not to disturb the pair behind it.  A quietus had followed on the heels of their vociferous and eventually demonstrative passion, and the small frogs in the courtyard pond had raised their creaking voices in salute.  Inside, a silver mantle clock ticked too slowly on its neglected movement.  Two bodies lay draped over disordered linen on a half-tester bed, its barley-twist pillars ending in proud bulbed finials, almost an allusion to the labours that had exhausted its occupants.  They were sprawled in randomized languor, their tanned limbs dark against the chalk-white sheets, the woman formed from dulcet curves and dusk-hued hollows, the young man a study of puissant masculinity with his great browned arms and polished back, broad and thickly-furrowed.  He lay face down in the bedclothes; while he did not hear the high whine of the hinges, he knew the drifting smell of an intruder even in the midst of torpor and opened his black eyes.  

The white jug on the bedside table toppled to the floor and smashed, knocked by the butt of the shotgun at which he swung and lost, Edward ripping the weapon from his grasp.  Flipping it in his hand, he trained its snout on the lycanthrope’s face and punched a tanto blade into the flat of his shoulder, driving it through muscle until it struck the socket and locked the arm immobile.  While his victim writhed against the mattress he reached down and shot out the backs of his knees with a pistol, lifting the sheet to keep the spatter from his clothing.  On the far side of the bed the girl dropped to the floor and fished with both hands under the mattress, but Edward trained the smoking pistol on her face and she froze again, staring at him.

“No se mueva.” he told her.  She complied, until her eyes fell to the bed where her companion strained hopelessly for the knife buried in his back.
“Chinga tu madre!” she hissed, clutching her sheet.  "Hijo de puta!”  From execrating his intrusion she began a muttered formula aimed at his person.
“Tell her.” Edward instructed his captive.  The man lifted his head from the mattress and conveyed that no incantation would prevail upon the stranger; they argued briefly before the girl dragged the sheet free and shuffled toward him at his insistence, wide-eyed with stymied rage.  With both occupants secured Edward took out his telephone and snapped a series of brightly flashed pictures of the scene before transmitting them to his client.  “Cesaro del Lobos de la Roca... your father wants to talk to you.” he told his victim, setting the appliance down on the bedside table.  
“He can go fuck his friends in Praha!  And you...” he snarled.  “Snake-face bastard... fuck yourself in hell with them... choke like a bitch on their money."  Edward stepped back to allow his client to address his son via the speakerphone.  When the crippled werewolf began to roar abuse at his father’s cool invective, he took the phone out onto the balcony and requested further instruction from his remote patron.  

The lycanthrope’s dualistic vitality yielded so slowly to exsanguination that the entire contents of his veins had soaked the mattress and leaked onto the tiles beneath before his heart and ruined limbs grew still.  Lifting the dead creature’s head by its sweat-damp hair, Edward eased the blade in a circle to bisect the tissues of his neck; its razor edge slid between the vertebrae though the skull still did not twist free as easily as most.  He allowed the remaining blood to lapse from the required trophy before sealing it into a black zippered bag.  Bereft of its handsome terminal, the thickset corpse lay with its back to the ceiling on the sheets beside the bound witch, who had, at the sight of her lover’s desecration, given up her frenzied fight against the ties securing her to the frame.  Kohl ran with her tears as Edward took the pistol from the table and walked around the bed with it.  He put its snout to the small depression at the base of her skull when she turned her head from him.  

“Ándale." she told him, lying still.  "You have killed the world for me.”

Though she felt the steel still at her nape, her bitter declaration had pierced his blank surface and flickered in his golden eyes.  Fingers flexing on the weapon, Edward knew that he had lost the will required by his employer’s final stipulation.  He cut the witch free with hands he scarcely recognised; taking the black bag from the floor, he set it down at the end of the mattress beside the feet of her beloved, insuring that she could commit his sacred entirety to the funerary flames.  The woman sat weeping on the bed and the sound pursued him, out onto the balcony and down into the narrow, shadowed strip of terraced garden.


C O N T I N U E D   N E X T   W E E K
© céili o'keefe   do not reproduce

Mine lives in indifferent and now quite elderly potting mix in a medium sized container, spending its dormancy under the cacti shelves and   emerging in its own sweet lime time each summer.  I must get round to repotting the poor thing.  Meanwhile, one of the spathes from my Arisaema consanguineum looks like it's setting fruit. ^

This recipe is an old hybrid based on that used by my great grandmother and is a trad colonial (possibly Raj-influenced) flavour.  It's a loose beast, perfectly delicious in the form presented here but eminently upgradable via fancier vinegars, posh sugars (try Demerara or cut some ordinary brown with Muscovado- oooh!) and spice amendments according to your personal taste.  The only thing I would absolutely not leave out is the curry power; it might sound whack, even budget, and you don't end up with something tasting specifically of it, but it really is the warm, throbbing pulse in the throat of this recipe.  

Don't worry too much about relative quantities- close enough is really fine.  I'm doing double the stated amount today so your volumes won't look like mine.  The recipe is fairly extrapolatable but doubling them as I'm doing is probably best left to someone who's made preserves before, just because you need a bit of experience to judge the cooking time and consistency etc.  And I wouldn't suggest trying to triple a batch unless you have gigantic commercial-style pots and utensils.  It's bulky and will spit like a bitch all over your kitchen once it's on the boil.

Start your Interstellar Relish in the morning or before lunch so you can give the salted tomatoes time to macerate.  This is a slow cooking gig.  Bring a book, put on a long-arse mix tape or reserve someone to talk to.

^ This is how it looked when just brought to the boil: to the right is what you're looking for towards completion.  Thicker (but not gelled like jam, just 'reduced'), darker, syrupy, softer and stickier.  If you drip it on a cool surface it should stick and sort of condense as it cools.  You can go further than the result you see to the right and really reduce the crap out of it if you're interested in extreme savour; it turns into something quite brownish and sort of balsamic if you know what I mean- very piquant and gourmet.  We personally use this relish for so many things (and the Lovely R is such a fucking relish-glutton) that we need a bit of volume to tide us over, so I'm calling time at this point.

Try to get a good even ratio of the solid and liquid in every jar as you're filling them.  I like to make sure the vegetables are 'submerged' before I screw on the lid but that's probably just magical thinking as far as preservation is concerned.  I've never had a jar of this stuff go bad, even after a full year.  It's very stable stored dark and cool in a cupboard somewhere.  Do keep it in the fridge once opened, though.

1978.  I was 6.  Debbie has always looked both 17 and 1000 years old to me.